Temperatures have dropped overnight – and just like that – we’re only three months out from kicking off a whole new year. ABSOLUTELY NO COMPLAINTS FROM ME. See Ya Summer!
Fall has pushed its way into our lives, along with all the cool weather rituals that come with it. This includes everyone’s favorite autumn trends, like:
Neighborhood yards morphing into small wheat farms, overrun with straw bales and cornstalks.
Losing an hour at night, but somehow gaining lots more sleep.
Orange sweaters and Ugg boots…need I say more?
Soup becoming a main course instead of a snack.
The fashionable return of baggy clothes to cover up summer overindulgence and holiday throwdowns.
And of course, we can’t forget Halloween! It’s the one day when you can transform into someone or something else, and no one judges your style. It’s like a hall pass on life. There’s no pressure about who’s house you need to be at and how long you must stay. Instead, you get to visit everyone within the perfect time limit – knock, candy, go! And when it comes to satisfying your own guests that night, there’s never any stress preparing them a big meal. Hell, store-bought candy is acceptable and bite size recommended.
With all of these amazing traditions, what’s not to LOVE about fall? Well, I’ll tell you… Pumpkins!
Hear me out, guys. Around mid-September, we start to hear whispers about pumpkin-spiced lattes, muffins, sauces, pastas and all the other orange-gourd creations that come out, along with the flannels. Everywhere you look, it’s pumpkin this and pumpkin that. Food that shouldn’t taste like pumpkin becomes infused with its flavor – like some harvest hybrid nightmare. Before you know it, we’re being sold on a pumpkintopia!
With so many great veggies and fruits at their peak this time of year, why does this one, certain squash get to be the center of attention for two months? Isn’t it enough that we’ve devoted a whole damn pie to it and made it the symbol of an entire holiday?
For me, 2020 is the beginning of a boycott… No orange Jack-O-Lantern for Red! I know, I know. Last year I filled my recipes with it, but enough is enough. I’m not one to follow basic, and I love to fight for the underdog. So, I’m booting played-out pumpkin for all my OTHER fall veggies!
Yeah, this won’t be easy. It’s a big undertaking to quit anything cold turkey. But with baby steps, we get there. Here are few other AMAZING, fresh ingredients to consider throwing into the kitchen mix in the chilly days ahead.
Acorn Squash
Butternut Squash
Spaghetti Squash
Beets
Kohlrabi
Radishes
Turnips
Parsnips
Rutabagas
Fire up the stove and use this month’s recipes as a starting point. It’s time we show Jack what’s up!
Did you know the world is using less cardboard today than we did 20 years ago? It seems unbelievable with the number of Amazon boxes that we have delivered to the house every day. But it's true because the industry has become much more efficient at packing and shipping.
At Clean Eatz, we are on a constant initiative to reduce our footprint when shipping our meal plans. We receive a lot of feedback from our customers on the sustainability of our products when they receive a shipment. While it may seem like there is a lot of packaging materials used to get your meals to you, here is how we view our impact on the environment and how you can help:
Clean Eatz strives to take any economically feasible steps to minimize the impact of our business. With your help, we can help reduce our footprint to only the fossil fuels needed to transport the product. In fact, a majority of our products are actually produced in North Carolina (where we are), which reduces our carbon emissions footprint with the benefit of helping local industry.
CARDBOARD BOXES
Our cardboard boxes are made including recycled cardboard. Our boxes are made 15 miles from our facility making our impact local and minimal.
You can help - recycle the cardboard
INSULATED LINERS
Our liners are made from recycled blue jean scraps wrapped in a moisture-proof plastic coating. Our liners are made 200 miles from our facility.
You can help - cut open the liners. The blue insulation can go to any cotton recycling bin (t-shirt bin) and the plastic coating can be recycled with plastic bags
DRY ICE
Our dry ice is reclaimed carbon dioxide from a byproduct of industry. This allows us to "recycle" carbon dioxide and use it twice rather than emitting it into the atmosphere. Our dry ice is made 150 miles from our facility.
MEAL PLAN CONTAINERS
Our containers are made including recycled plastic.
You can help - recycle or reuse the containers
MEAL PLAN SLEEVES
Our sleeves are made including recycled paper. Our sleeves are made 25 miles from our facility.
You can help - recycle the sleeves with paper
As you can see, all of our shipping products contain at least some parts recycled materials, allowing us to reduce our impact in an otherwise wasteful industry. Please, be thoughtful in how you use and dispose of our products to help minimize our collective impact on our earth.
